The Player of Games

gga

That ‘M’ is important and very distinctive. This is a completely
different author to Espedair
Street; even though both books
list all Iain Banks and Iain M. Banks books. No? Don’t believe me?
Well, yeah. His fiction is published as Iain Banks and his sci-fi as
Iain M. Banks. Strange, but that’s the way he does it.

His sci-fi is some of the best I’ve read since Philip K. Dick. And as
he doesn’t produce anywhere near as much as Dick, it averages a lot
better. Though without some of the crazed inventiveness. But that
sounds like damning Banks with faint praise: his sci-fi really is that
good. There are fantastic ideas and a very plausible feel to
everything. He doesn’t shoot himself in the foot by trying to explain
how everything works: the technology is just there and it works.

But his strongest points are actually his characterisations and
story. You get involved, you believe, and most importantly, you
care. And on top of that, the story is usually about the growth and
life of a character - sometimes a descending spiral with no
apparent way out; sometimes a broadening and opening of a character
you initially dislike.

This book is fascinating for the first real peek inside the Culture,
instead of the view of a mercenary looking from the outside, in.